This is a Catholic Blog with comments on current events from a theological viewpoint.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Burial or Cremation?

For the first Christians, the resurrection after death was a strong reality. They did everything they could to be able to bury the bodies of their dead. When we visit the catacombs in Rome, we are struck by the care and the faith with which the dead were buried. They are laid out as if they were sleeping. «We look for the Resurrection of the dead and life everlasting» (The Creed) Such is the faith of Christians who believe that, just as Christ rose from the tomb with his body, so too we will rise with our body by the power of the Holy Spirit.This is why cremation had been rejected for a long time since it was seen as a refusal to believe in the Resurrection. Today the Church no longer forbids a funeral ceremony if a person chooses cremation for a GOOD REASON, and there is no danger in compromising the belief in the resurrection of the dead. In certain countries, it is sometimes a necessity, and also under certain circumstances. The same respect ought to be given to the ashes as is given to the body of the deceased. They should be deposited in an established and respectable place in a cemetery but NEVER IN ONE’s HOME. Nevertheless, the relationship between faith and practice leads us to PREFER burying the body whenever possible. This signifies more clearly the respect of the body of each person who has become a temple of the Holy Spirit through baptism and who is called to the resurrection on the last day. Nourished by the Eucharist - the Body of Christ - our mortal bodies are given the promise of immortality. Burying the dead, as the first Christians did, signifies the expectation of the Resurrection. Even in those situations where cremation seems the only possible alternative, the Church always desires that the Funeral Mass be celebrated with the body present, and then the cremation can take place afterwards.

Within five months, I lost my father, grandmother and mother, so funerals are very familiar to me at the moment. My father lived almost his entire adult life not only not attending Mass (he was a cradle Catholic), but berating my mom and me for our devotion to the Church and to Mary. In the end, I don't think Mom or I could have coped with his very sudden death without the Sacraments. He was given the Apostolic Pardon by Fr. Chris (Uhl) while he was in a coma and we had a beautiful and moving funeral Mass. The my grandmother died and Mom died two weeks later. Both had beautiful funeral Masses and without the consolation of the Mass and the Sacraments, I could not have gotten through all of this loss, especially since I was an only child. My mother asked me toward the end why she had to suffer so much (she had colorectal cancer and congestive heart failure); I told her that someone needed her suffering and that it was not for nothing. She died peacefully just after her sister and I said 10 decades of the Rosary and we sent her to be with Our Lord with a Hail Mary to take with her. I would never have dreamed of having any of them cremated. I know God can do anything, so raising bodies from ashes would be no problem, but there is something so pagan about burning the bodies of your loved ones. We are not Vikings; we are Catholics!

Every community and religion believes that its only the body that dies, but the soul lives along...so does it really matter how the body perishes...Ya ofcourse respecting it is a priority, in whichever way it remains. like in Hinduism cremation is a common belief but the ashes are respected and treated with holism.

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